The plays · Plate V
France, 18 December 2022
World Cup final, extra time, the 108th minute, 2–2. He is 35. Lautaro Martínez’s shot, Hugo Lloris’s save, and 0.96 seconds after the strike Messi’s right foot on the rebound, 2.4 metres out. At 1.3 seconds the whole ball is over the line; Jules Koundé hooks it back from about 0.9 metres behind it, and goal-line technology gives the goal. The move, drawn instant by instant and measured from the broadcast.
Fig. 1 The goal, as broadcast
Fig. 2 The play, instant by instant
Plate V Eight instants, 8.9 seconds
Charcoal studies after the broadcast, main camera, FIFA’s two low replay cameras, one on each touchline, and the close camera on the referee. Times are from Lautaro’s strike, counted frame by frame in FIFA’s highlights upload at 50 frames per second; the replays are placed on that count by the ball, to about a tenth of a second. The red crayon marks the ball.
Fig. 3 The shot and the rebound
Table 1 Measured
| Shot to the ball over the line | 1.3 s | Struck at 1:05.44 in FIFA’s highlights upload at 50 fps, ± 1 frame. The whole ball is over at about 1:06.78, ± 0.05 s: placed from the near-touchline slow replay, scaled to the live count by the save and the touch at 0.0123 s per replay frame, because the main camera sees the line at an angle. The same scale puts the hook within one live frame of its count. |
|---|---|---|
| The pass | 16 m · 1.9 s | Enzo Fernández’s foot at about 1:03.52, 19 m out, to Lautaro’s at 1:05.44. Along the reconstructed line, ± 3 m: about 8 m/s, along the ground. |
| The shot | ≈ 8 m · 0.27 s | 13 to 14 frames from the strike at 1:05.44 to Lloris at 1:05.71, ± 1 frame. From 4.7 m out and 11 m right of centre to Lloris, 1.4 m off his line. About 28 m/s, or 100 km/h; the count and half a metre either end allow 25 to 32 m/s. |
| The rebound | 0.69 s · 1 m | Save at 1:05.71, Messi’s touch at 1:06.40. The ball goes up and comes down more or less where it started; 0.69 s in the air means it rose about 0.6 m, by the time of flight, to roughly a metre above the grass. |
| The finish | right foot · 2.6 m · 67° | Touched at 1:06.40, 0.96 s after the strike, at knee height, 2.4 m out and 3.9 m right of centre; the foot is El Español’s report. From there the goal subtends 67 degrees. To the line it is 2.6 m, reaching it about 0.7 m inside the right-hand post, at about 7 m/s. |
| How far over the line | ≈ 0.9 m | Our measurement, not the technology’s: we could find no published figure, in FIFA’s material or elsewhere, and the referee’s watch gets only the decision. The ball’s centre when Koundé’s boot meets it at 1:06.88 reads 0.7 m behind the line in the low camera and 1.2 m in the main camera, so 0.9 m ± 0.3 m. |
| Time behind the line | ≈ 0.2 s | Whole ball over at about +1.34 s, hooked at +1.44 s, back out at about +1.56 s by the same replay scale. Too quick for the live picture to settle; the watch did. Separately, the assistant’s flag went up for offside after the goal, and the VAR check found Lautaro onside. |
| Score | 3–2 | Kylian Mbappé made it 3–3 from the penalty spot in the 118th minute. Argentina won the shoot-out 4–2, the third World Cup in their history and the first in his. |
How this was made. The clip is FIFA’s. The drawings are charcoal studies after single frames of FIFA’s two uploads of the final, the highlights and the full match, with the poses, the positions and the ball kept where they were; the frames themselves are not reproduced. Shirt numbers, and in h some figures the image model had added, were taken out by hand. Every line, number and name on this page is drawn by the page, not by hand, from the measurements above. The minute, the line-ups and the substitutions are FIFA’s, whose account has Messi forcing it home after Lloris parried Lautaro’s “blistering shot”; Sky Sports has the referee’s goal-line technology watch and Koundé clearing from inside the net; the build-up, the foot and the offside check follow El Español. The players were told apart by shirt numbers, boots and hair in the replays. The durations were counted frame by frame in FIFA’s 50-frame highlights upload. The positions and the distance over the line are our reconstruction from the box markings, and carry the stated uncertainty.
Sources: FIFA, highlights of the final (YouTube) · FIFA, the full match (YouTube) · FIFA, full-time match report · FIFA, the final recalled · Sky Sports, match report · El Español, the goal and the two appeals
Drawings by the site, after the broadcast; each clip comes from its rights holder’s own channel. An unofficial, non-commercial fan project, not affiliated with Lionel Messi or any club, league or federation. Spot a mistake? Email corrections@boyfromrosario.org.